chess improvement

After five years of constant and peripatetic email writing, I have finally landed. I plan to write about current and world affairs, economic and environmental sustainability, chess study and improvement, quantitative investing and trading, workplace issues, relationships, and spiritual transformation. Much love to all.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Documentary on New Orleans chessmaster Jude Acers

Hi David,
I thought you might be interested in the documentary I’m making about New Orleans chessmaster Jude Acers who has been playing $5 games in the French Quarter at his "World Chess Table" since 1981.

Here's a link to our Kickstarter campaign where you can learn more about Jude and our project and rewards. We have a video trailer of the project, where you can get a glimpse of what we've been able to accomplish and where the project is headed.

An anonymous benefactor in recent years has sent Jude to compete in the FIDE World Senior Chess Championship held annually in Europe and the documentary team has recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough funds to join Acers in Croatia in November to cover Jude as he seeks to become the World Senior Chess Champion.

I'm writing to see if it would possible for you to write something about the project on your website or social media accounts to help inform the chess community about the project? We could then put a link to your website on the front page of our Kickstarter campaign so people could go and read your write up and check out your site.

Below are some brief details about Jude Acers, the chessmaster who is the subject of the documentary.

In 1964 a 20-year old Acers entertained a 21-year old Bobby Fischer in Baton Rouge in New Orleans (where he played Fischer to a draw at a simultaneous tournament), shortly after Fischer's 11-0 run at the U.S. Chess Championship; in 1968 Acers lived in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district and played pick-up basketball with The Doors and counted Janis Joplin among his acquaintances when he wasn't competing against top players at the Mechanics' Chess Club; Jude's 1970 win over U.S. Champion Walter Browne was voted a “Top Ten” theory game in the world for 1970 by a panel of six grandmasters and published in Chess Informant (Informator/Belgrade); Acers has been in the Guinness Book of World Records twice for simultaneous exhibitions and today Fodor’s 2013 New Orleans guidebook sends tourists right to Jude's table. Jude has also logged thousands of miles across the country via Greyhound bus giving chess exhibitions in prisons and malls. He's a great popularizer of the game.

We have already spent extensive time at Acers' table interviewing him at length when he's not playing and they're also developing storylines about people in Jude's orbit--a cast that looks remarkably like New Orleans.

I hope you give it a look and don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions.

Chess Tactics Server, Is This the End?

Chess Tactics Server, has been down for the last day. If anyone out there has knowledge of the situation, please let me know.

I fear more than a blip, but a real sea change, the very jeopardy of CTS, chess.emrald.net.

I have been increasingly concerned of late, taking very careful and deliberate note of the site finally having fallen below 2,000 users having an RD <= 100, that is to say regular users.

In so doing, besides drawing attention to that, which was long in coming, I thought that it was time to, of all things, establish a Yahoo user group towards putting the site on a more secure footing. I estimate that not only I, but any of some fifty other persons could be expected to be reasonably found there who would have the necessary the technical or managerial capability to lead such an effort or initiative, nothing special, but only one person responded, chessisajedrez. He said that he had limited time (as I do also), but threw his name in, if but only just only do so, and see what happens.

This is a most unfortunate break. Since 2006 I can only recall only one other instance of an outage lasting more than an hour or few minutes, and that one was for a week or so. In fact, it dates to the time of the establishment of this blog.

I have no magic bullets, no ready answers. I do know how to go about enterprise, coordinate a discussion, help evangelize or communicate a process, but cannot do it alone. I have ideas, but it will take more than one person. Save the site, communicate with the owners, track down the owners in Germany, mirror or host the site somewhere else? There ARE options.

Does anyone out there have any information as to what is going on? Is this temporary, and to be fixed? Or is this a permanent failure? Please let me know. David Korn reached at:
davidkorn dot specialprojects g 'male'. dot 'calm'. Phone +253 214-4282 United States, Tacoma WA.

{
This video is inserted here, meant to highlight my comment, in reply back to BDK below. There is a saying in the wild days of wild Zen Masters, 'We are all sinners and whores'. What can I say?

If you offended by this video, look in the mirror, we are all Americans. As Timothy McVeigh once said, of Oklahoma City bombing kind:

'I could no longer stomach working for the biggest bully on the planet', once a decorated and deeply committed soldier. Right perception, wrong methods.

We have not improved. Violence justified? No, not hardly. Reason to be deeply upset at what our society has become? Yes. Need for total outrage.

**
Some think having your phone number on the web is a risk. No. Like a blackbelt in aikido or karate, I am willing to stand with anyone, on the phone I feel safe, as in about ten seconds, I can see what is happening, make my decision, and detect what is coming at me. This is a lot harder in email. Live is easy. Its called immediate apprehension.

**
I said upon becoming chess coach at a major high school, that my blog had to be buttoned down. Well, its true. But things evolve. Even limits have limits!
}

Friday, June 21, 2013

Chess is Hard

Coaching chess at Stadium High and Mason Middle School worked out great. Plan to be back next fall.

Doing another circle at CT-Art 3.0. Last one was 72 days, this one is 49 days. Great stuff.

Finishing TASC2, CD trainer, part five, as we speak.

Playing daily at chess.com, non-rated. I only play the Caro-Kann, Slav, and Torre, so when I tell you I only now play 1.e4 as White, 1...e5 in response, and the Nimzo Indian, to make myself totally uncomfortable, like a boxer only fighting with his other hand, I can tell you, it works. Harsh. Like what is called muscle confusion in extreme fitness.

Still hope to run the ultra marathon, but lost a lot of capability from November. Gardening towards rent several times per week MUST take precedence.

In job market.

Love Tacoma. Folks here are so nice. I go running at the beach. Life is not luxury, its hard, but there are a few graces.

Gluten and dairy free. Wish I could go have a pizza.

Gave up my ICC membership after twelve years. I made a serious complaint about a person, to the management, whom I know and who knows me, and totally disappointed in how they do things. They have not heard the last of me, and it will probably occur here.

Yasser and I plan to see each other in August for an afternoon as is our custom, when he comes back home, and the few minutes we got to see each other at the US Open last summer, is just not enough, but he needed his energy for what he faced. I duly note, I asked him if he'd watch me in the blitz tournament, and he did. My god. A total disaster for me. Enlightenment is embodied in physicality. You have to have the pieces in your hands, the feel, 5 0 at the board is not the web.

My mother died in Febuary. Told my sister, be happy, plan a party with a lot of booze. She was done, rest in piece now. A tough old lady.

My cat died in May, now that hurt. Fifteen years. He was born when I turned forty, ten at my fifty. But I found a good home for him, on a lake, in New Jersey, could not take him with me any more. Thank you Shruti (Sanskrit, Veda's).

Glad to see Snowden giving the government a hard time. Things have gotten far worse out there than is generally known. We are at the end of the collapse of Easter Island. We are toast.

Is this guy wrong? Could be. I just think disturbance is exactly what we need. I love Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey. Sister says to me: 'I think he is totally obnoxious'. Told her, I totally agree. That is what I like about him. This idea, that you work for the Post Office for so many years, then get medical-dental for life???? Reality check. The money is there, just a question of where it goes. They were discussing whether to have a guard stationed every one-thousand feet on the border with Mexico. The money that seems to be available, when they want it???

Friday, April 05, 2013

David, How Are You?

A kind reader asked me how I was doing. Mostly very good, but you know how I am and how it goes with me, mixed is always in the mix.
Report:

Moved to Tacoma successfully in mid-January. My expectations for here was of a grim, soulless place. How little do we know! How little indeed do I know. This proves the fundamental ignorance of life. Not only did I have this view for many years, but vocalized it, but as recently as the fall with great force, having no idea that I would be here. Rather Tacoma is beautiful, calm, and remarkably--just as my benefactors told me--it IS COMPLETELY AND UNEXPECTEDLY DIFFERENT than Seattle. People ARE SO NICE!

I started another cycle of CT-Art 3.0, but my otherwise svelte, swift, super fast Acer finally gave up the ghost. Once it started, it was great. It had severe power problems, start up problems from day one, minute one. Word to the wise: if you buy something that is brand new, not cheap, and is defective as you drive it the first time, use it the first time, meet him or her the first time, sleep there the first time, work there the first week or month, eat it the first time, get rid of it. Send it back. I have tried so hard to be an accepting person, but this one I no longer wish to accept, and have learned to keep this way of seeing. No. As Nietzsche said in his Beyond Good and Evil: 'The wisest of all ages have all agreed: "It is no good"'.

So I got rid of it, and started over, so am back at zero there. All, all my ChessBase files were backed up, except my TWIK's 885 to 919, which I cannot buy or download, reloading MegaBase 2011 (really a 2010, with a patch which they allow you to download off their server. A real total mess), adding the subscriptions for 2011, added Corr 2011. 5.899M games. Today I downloaded (new) TWIK's 920-940, but alas, the old Week In Chess removed them. As is fair. Mark Crowther must eat. He will sell access in the next few weeks, $20.00 per year, not bad for ten years of free data, on my end...

I am gluten and dairy free again.

My host needs help dressing up their organic garden, organic and yard work, and no amount of hours can repay the support they gave me the in the last year++ and for the furnished and pantry filled condo for this year, and more, so I run there whenever I can. Let me know when to get there! That is my position. So this however squelches my ultr-marathon training. Glad to help Robert and DJ, but bittersweet, when I wonder how my now being down about 12 lbs with an even more refined diet would allow me to run 30 miles instead of 19 or 20, or run 12 more vigorously? Gratitude matters far more. Running 'will be there when I come back'.

I am now the chess coach at a very highly regarded High School here, on a volunteer basis. And in a most beautiful setting, in a near castle overlooking the Puget Sound. Easy to figure out that one! Alas, Grandmaster Seirawan, who went to school in our state, even wrote a letter of recommendation to the High School Principal. If that were not enough, the best MAN AT HIS WEDDING went to this same school, some forty miles from Seattle. Small world. Yaz is of course number one in the state, never mind top ten USA. Eric Tangborne also graduated there, who is yet another close friend of Yassers, who is number two in state. So the stars lined up. I am serious. I am committed. My dream is high. I am at the zero line. The same usual mix of great confidence, and need for great humility.

I cannot and will not erase my social media of the last eight years, but not only at the high school, but at the middle school four blocks, five minutes walk from my house similarly volunteer, also on a serious basis. So my wild man days or preternatural inclination to acerbity writing on the web are over. I am in the public. No cursing, no special images, no wild videos. I can say that, can I not? I am not kidding. I have first and foremost, to make sure kids are safe, so this blog is hereby in the lines. This goes for any teacher, or anyone else part of a school.

My new PC arrived two days ago, a quad, 12 GB of RAM. Fast. The Fritz 11 SE which comes with ChessBase 11 is fast. Yes. Why of course, do I own Rybka. Before there was a Houdini or it was as yet seen as best, the latter was an is more than strong enough for any club player. But this time I did not load it. Too darn slow. Its evals are unique, and I am eager to try it with all this extra ram, but it can wait.

I played a ton of Chess960 when I got here. An opponent was so unsportsmanlike, I ranted to the staff, sent five emails to the President, Ruy Mura, told them this man needs to apologize to me, or I am probably going to ask to terminate my account immediately, and a refund for balance. They wrote me back. You know how it goes. You don't read what you are not ready for, so save it, for when you have emotional energy for it. I have not read it, but will. Sad. I have standards, and I am not done talking about this. Trust me on this.
* * * Big companies always talk about conduct, and zero tolerance, but we all know it is a myth.

Its like someone said recently, CEO's all talk about standards, as along as it is for someone else. I am not mad at Ruy, who is always good to me, but the way this is, is poor. I am not done talking about this. Chess.com does not allow it. Why should ICC. I once heard Yermolinsky say something, comparing Magnus to well known behavior of Tiger Woods, worse than you can say. I copied it, reported it. Nothing done. Yermo? Great comentator? YES!!! Among the best. So they instrumentalize it, turning a blind eye to decency, in the name of revenue. This is already way too great an insert, in my new modus operandi of 'clean', but I do plan to stay me. Right message, less upset, more calm.

My otherwise nice condo has water, mold damage. The carefully orchestrated plan was to remediate in just a few days, is now planned for weeks, so I am again staying at ExtendedStay, paid by my beloved host.

[

More of video, hard to find best full version, so here is another anchor:

]

Weather here remarkably uniform. We surrounded on three side by a arm of the ocean. Seattle has this same weather, the Puget Sound has this, its one of the major reasons we are here, along with access to cultural diversity, alpine, marine, and tucked as far in a corner of the USA as can be, as far from LA, and New York, and Miami as can be and not be in another country. But Tacoma as far as weather goes exaggurates that. We are in a heat sink. Indeed, high and low tides here, can change from -3.0 to +13.5', or 5.2 meters! Or about -1 to +11 or 12' in a normal cycle, or 3.7 meters. This is not the Bay of Fundy, but plenty of it.

Currently still trying to finish TASC 2 or Steppenmethodde, Fifth part. I am almost done. Plan to be back to CTS. This is a good program.

No USCF rated games.
Richard at ChessTempo kindly gifted me a premium membership to CT, but have not as yet dug into it as deeply as I can, and plan to. One things I know, from my 800 tries in the last year, standard, is there is no single place on the web in chess which is smarter. ChessBomb is pretty good too. Thank you Richard. BTW, CT can be called CT-Art to-go. Can I get that to-do? In a box. A 'doggie bag'. Whatever that is.

Magnus. I am sad for Vlad. He is a most respectable player. But chess moves on. Chess will derive a gigantic benefit from Carlsen-Anand Nov 2013, such as not seen since Reykavik with Fischer-Spassky 1973. I really need to instead say Vlad's loss is tragic, since the word for Lev is also sad, and don't want to say it twice. I am glad for Carlsen. He will be ready.

Click lower R to expand image, views well at YouTube directly.

Attitude. Magnus was raised by his dad Heinrich to be modest, affable, humble, soft spoken. We see a new Magnus now, a bit of attitude, or a lot of it. I do not begrudge it, he must grow. I had tons of attitude at age 32, and at 55 am totally, 100% different, he earned a chance to explore the dipole.

But one thing is for sure. He is re-balancing, probably overcompensating, but gosh, he must fight not most of them, not just the best, but the entire world. Lets watch. Try fighting the entire world, taking it on. Just try it some time. You, too, might have to have attitude, or if you didn't have one, grow one.

More latter. I am here. I am very active. I am very creative. I need however, to marshal my energy.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Over The Top

Right now, I have Murray vs. J. Chardy in the Men's Quarter Finals of the Australian Open in the lower left of my computer, then decided to put on Bloomberg TV after checking S&P and NASDAQ overnight futures, but then decided to switch from the live feed at Bloomberg to the video on NYU Professor Nouriel Roubini's, AKA Dr. Doom.

My man Roubini, basically says our fiscal and monetary course is totally fucked, leading to sure breakdown. Right on bro!

Of course, this is after an ICC chess960 game, currently waiting for my next game in the queu.
In classical homeopathy, this is called being overstimulated as a symptom. Go figure.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Moving Again, Back to Washinton State. Totally Unexpected.

Its a shame to have suddenly gone into pause mode, at this blog, after such a sustained period of activity, but unlike a year or two or so back, when I hardly blogged, this pause should not be too long. This blog continues.
As I said before, I have more posts on CT-Art 3.0 and the haloed seven circles, already in the works to done, but want calm respite to edit and add a bit.
I am moving to Tacoma, to an incredible living situation.

My sponsors DJ and RS bought a condo, with the first intention of my living there, in further support. It faces a greenbelt, directly if I might say, and hardly half a mile from the nascent ocean, the fragrant Puget Sound. My ice axe and crampons are ready, will get the snowshoes out of storage, and find new job.

I depart for Tacoma Wednesday, leaving Xerox Services on the best of terms, for our major web-travel client. All my managers and senior managers said five times each, you can come back any time. They all call me Mr. Korn. No shit, honest. Some events occurred, and David took on Goliath, cannot tell of it yet. But I got results for two or three hundred persons, real impact. Believe you me.

Xerox offered a convenient transfer. All my managers to upper level district here helped me. Thank you. I respect those around me mightily, but do plan to have a thing or two to say about them--Xerox proper in the media. Its Janus faced. Great love and kindness from all persons, and a superstructure that does real harm to society. It is forbidden on the web to talk like this, as far as leaving in peace, but you don't know to what I will speak. I have a stronger word for it, but will leave to the major network.

I plan to call Anderson Cooper on CNN, and try to start high up.
There is a lot of serious chess in Washington State, on paper near double Portland, but given proximity to a gigantic pool of talent, from Microsoft, Google divisions, Intel, Amazon, Starbux, Boeing, tons of 2000 to 2400 ELO's trickling down to class B. I have to parse the stats, but at a glance, yes.
I was training for the ultramarathon, when I got a terrible bronchitus, are variety of this major domestic flu.

I will be back. It kept going and going and going, with no end in sight for four our five weeks, so starving it out of me, gluten, daily, and free of even minor beer.
Love to you all. The people of Portland are fantastic, there is so much love here, notably Tigard, Beaverton, Forest Park, Hillsdale, Lake Oswego. Portland proper is a bit raw, but thats life. Ok. Here goes. dk

Such a lovely man. Such a fantastically great attitude! See immediate below!

PS Video at immediate post, is automated, so simple page down to hit pause, or wait for the short interlude, before playing below.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Magnus Carlsen on beating Garry Kasparov's rating record

I am starting to feel like I am short changing my blog by recently reporting more about chess grandmasters, than my own results, intentions, and process. At the same time, what Carlsen has done recently and has accomplished is amazing.

And his attitude is so good. Here is going to be the last one of its kind for awhile. Here note how he says that he has a lot more to learn, and wants to improve further. That is why he is the best. Who among the top four or five go out publicly and say they plan to improve?

Sunday, December 09, 2012

400 Points in 4,000 Days: Not so rapid chess improvement for the adult class player: A five-year program (Update)

A few minutes ago, I just finish ALL 1,209 of the CT-Art 3.0 problems. What a beast. I will be writing about this extensively in the next few weeks. Quickly. No edits or rereading. Here it is, in the raw:

Double Click Image to Enlarge

That my attained rating there of 2597 has no real signficance to others, nor is to suggest this reflects my OBP strength does not need comment. But what does matter, is that the last time I tried this cycle AND the time before that, I found it very, very hard to get past 2250 and 2300. I can see more now, calculate a lot better. Relative to me. That is what matters here, worth noting. Study helps. Hard work helps. Refusing to quit helps. It sinks in, believe me it does. I can see it.

I will be moving in a tad over four weeks, so will do my best to share as I promise. Its not so much that there is so much packing--after a serious liquidation cum storage blitzkrieg in Seattle two years ago, this will not be a problem--as prep. Lists of places to submit job applications, drop by and make appropriate in person introductions. All that. Just want to go up there very integrated. The folks who are furnishing the condo are VERY high level, and its not that there are strings attached--there are not--but, rather, want to be in sympatico.

A three hour run at Forest Park tomorrow, I cannot wait to get out there, carb loading last two nights, a glass of wine (or two) now--tiny pours, but still...

Had a serious call from Dubai Friday night. Hotel very, very upset. I stayed 90 minutes after my shift ended, to help them. I basically took a very, very irate customer--supplier-partner, ready to blast us, and with good reason, and left him feeling, as was honestly true, that I would spare no effort to help them. Called Lodging Support at our parent company, and talked to two persons. All great persons.

You all know my acerbic side in blogging, but in the day to day work world, I like to be the nice guy with customers and coworkers. It gives me comfort. I get to forget me. Those of you in Customer Service know what it is all about. You either like it, or you don't...

]
Always Planning. More like a sketch of possible performance benchmarks WITH results, than raw results. I am a spreadsheet maven, and sketch with it. The main L column is the actual daily work. I cannot help but be this way. Sh_t. I am half German. What, with a name like Korn. Mit ya plan, ya!

Double Click Image to Enlarge

]

...What mattered is, is that our customer knew finally someone cared, and drilled into the bottom, 'here is the name to call, here is their number, their email, here is my full name (in call centers you are told not to, I am just David at HHL--acronym for my area, not telling who or what it is--and here are my hours').

If I could have given him my mobile, without getting into trouble I would do that. 'Yes. If I were in your situation, I would be VERY, very upset, too'. Well, it felt good. I truly love customer service. I am able to subordinate my ego, which is far more comfort than you can ever know, and stand for my customers. I am in on-line travel, at least now :).

Our RETAIL customers are NOT my customers, but our supplier customers are. I tell them, 'I am here to help you. You are my customer. This will be easy'. That I almost did a project for The White House need not be said, but believe me, whatever this sovereignty saw in me, I bring it with me, wherever I go.

Do not exhaust yourself in opening theory. Of course, have a prodigious memory where you use lots of that also, just don't fixate on it. Create lots of imbalance and uncertainty. In a Lasker like way, 2nd rate moves are OK, just pose little problems sequenced on end which ultimately start to turn into intractable ones.

Trade off major pieces. Go for an endgame whenever possible. Use superior stamina, combined with a relentless will to win, to push and push subtle nuances Karpov like, till the opponent breaks. Instal Ken Thompson's entire Six Piece Tablebases into your head [1].

And when you are in equality, start to create the feeling that if the game is forced to go on, or is it, your opponent will begin to expect that you will force the issue by not seeking a draw, so that he is intimidated into thinking that sooner or latter they could be at risk by cracking. What, he's already seen it near countless times in the last year.

This is history in the making.

[1] 'Lunch With Magnus', a wonderful article from the Financial Times, linked here. If this does not amuse, nothing will.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

My God! When Two Giants Meets...

Carlsen is making a historic breakout. This video shows the beauty of his mind.

Click image to expand.

Also, here is a video of Kramnik discussing his game with Luke McShane. Now this guy is a real chess genius. It is not for nothing that some, including Kasparov, I think it was, said that Kramnik had the deepest understanding of chess, of All persons. Just listen to this guy. The ease with which he calls forth what he had thought. This is not just thinking, but a brilliant replay. And this is just what he had time to tell us. He does this for four or five hours, not half an hour. A thousands and tens of thousands of thoughts and assessments:

Kramnik is a truly beautiful mind. He once said that he loved to joke back and forth with Aronian with sarcastic quips (not in an unkind way). You can here him respond to Nigel Shorts quip, as to whether he had ever heard of the concept of Rook's worth five, and Knights three, at the 17:00 mark, at 17:30. Can start this segment at 16:40. Outrageous. He is so sharp and quick to come back. His humor is well known, and he shows it here.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

Pax Magnus

Double Click Image to enlarge [1]

Carlsen hit 2855.7, a full clear 51 points down to Aronian whom he beat today in good fashion in London. It is only fitting that this occurred with Big Bad Vlad back over 2800. Great times for chess. How far will Magnus get to, how far will he go? Whatever it is, he is clearly taking chess to a whole new level right now. That this has occurred two games in a row through his tenacity if not great cleavorness in endings cannot figure in a small way into his hegemony [2].

[1] Showing the top of my browser here, in this image cannot be an accident. If you are not using Google's Chrome Browser, the best thing on the web, then you are missing out. Do you know, that I could go to Iceland or Brazil, maybe even China if they let us go so far, and my bookmarks will be waiting for me? This is so valuable to me. I have EVERYTHING THERE. My whole life [3].[2] I am not sure what it means to say Pax Magnus. But the interlude is to suggest not so much that he has been at war with everyone, but quite the contrary, after a long period of climbing, he sits on Mount Olympus, if but for a day or a week, a year, or an entire era. We cannot know. But in its own funny way, I feel a sense of peace from this. I know some of you will understand:'Pax Romana, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus.

'Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman peace") was the long period of relative peace and minimal expansion by military force experienced by the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Since it was established by Caesar Augustus it is sometimes called Pax Augusta. Its span was about 207 years (27 BC to 180 AD).

'Origins of the termThe Pax Romana began with the accession of Augustus in 27 BC, which marked the end of the Roman Republic and its final civil wars, and lasted until 180 AD at the death of Marcus Aurelius. The Latin word pax, most often translated "peace," also means "treaty" or "accord." The Roman legal system, which forms the basis of many Western court systems today, unified the administration of justice in the courts throughout the provinces.

'The Legions patrolled the borders with success, and though there were still many foreign wars, the internal empire was free from major invasion, piracy, or social disorder on any grand scale. The empire, wracked with civil war for the last century of the Republic and for years following the Pax Romana, was largely free of large-scale power disputes. Only the year 69 AD, the so-called 'Year of the Four Emperors' following the fall of Nero and the Julio-Claudian line, interrupted nearly 200 years of civil order. Even this was only a minor hiccup in comparison to other eras. The arts and architecture flourished as well, along with commerce and the economy.'

[3] Some say, 'Do I want Google to know that much about me???' Well, they already know it all. Who cares. There is nothing to get from me. If I like women with body hair (I do), who the fu_k cares? I hope she likes chess and looks me up.

ChessBase Light or Euclid (Part Two)

Things come in fads, and in the late 80's writer Stewart Wilde was one of them. He focused on empowerment, manifestation, and did so with the wry, cleaver mark of a man who made himself out of nothing with not a small dose of street smarts.

What makes the mark of a fad? At the time his books-- each and every one of them--seemed essential to read. At the time they helped me a lot, but would never read them again and quite confident he is no longer topical, if not nearly forgotten now as far as best selling goes.

Very much like Dr. Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra [1], and most particularly, Carlos Castinada, the work was very good, and as promised to inspire, was both very effective and worthwhile. Dyer knew how to incent the baby steps of self realization, Chopra early on was very clear about the approach to treating the temple of our body with respect, and Castinada guided the way to showing how mundane life was within arms reach of real magic. OK.

But what each and every one of them did was try to turn this into a money machine. Lets be clear. Making money is OK. But they had other roles, and spoke to things from those roles, until they supplanted message making as and end in itself into a business--to the point of over-saturating the marketplace, diluting early, very primary work.

Now, lets be clear. I am not saying this about ChessBase. Quite the contrary. They have come a very long ways from the clunky little nascent windows driven environment of version six, to the svelt and sophisticated tools of taking the Cloud to your chess desktop, allowing one to take raw chess data and compare and categorize games according to history, results, pawn structure, and motif. Good for ChessBase, and staying in business and handily deserve they do. Back to heuristics, before we get back to chess.

Despite Wild's loosing his imprimatur, this does not mean that he didn't say a lot of very wise things. The most memorable on was: 'The trick about money is having some', well neigh the title of a book.

What this means is that you can talk all you want about investment selection, growth, asset classes, and diversification, but you just plain need money to start out. And if you don't, getting it is the first step, whereby no amount of manipulation or magical thinking can create large energy out of little to no energy.

So the first step is to have your games recorded, and it is to that, to which our next post, Part Three turns. After that, we will discuss where to do it and how. And most of all--and I say this as a veteret ChessBase user--this means knowing what other alternatives exist, some while not as sophisticated are a lot cheaper. I don't recommend that route, but I will need to show you other options.

[1] How very far he got off track. His first book, Return of the Rishi was written by a practicing physician, steeped in the work of Ayurveda [2]. He went from the focus of medicine with messaging, to messaging with medicine. At some point, given enough Oprah and Dr. Phil the message gets sadly cheapened. Tapes, trainings, meetings, credentialing, consultations. A real fu_kign money machine which becomes the focus of attention.[2] Sanskrit: आयुर्वेद; Āyurveda, "the knowledge for long life"

Saturday, December 01, 2012

If you are an aspiring, serious chess player, and not using ChessBase, then you are missing out. Big time.

You can do no better than to dive headfirst into getting familiar with ChessBase by downloading ChessBase Light 2009. It is free and it is very, very good. It is NOT dated. Lets be clear--this is not a limited time offer, a thirty day trial, or a deeply disabled version of chessBase. In actual fact, IT IS CHESSBASE. Trust me on this. I know exactly. I have had multiple students download, explore, and use this. It is fantastic, works very, very well, and is actually pretty easy. It was integral to our work.

Here is the link, to Download ChessBase Light 2009. Like a very special fishing hole, known to few if any but to you or a few locals in the know, as handed down over time, you would be very, very hard pressed to find this link without either great tenacity and resourcefulness in trying to find it, or knowing where and how.

Lets be clear. ChessBase has an easily found toggle for downloads--downloading various versions of chessBase and other programs, for a fee, or patches or service packs for earlier versions. But the link is not shown at the list of available downloads. But IF you scroll down a short ways on the slider bar, you will find it, sure enough--the selection for downloading chessBase Light.

Double-click image to enlarge

They don't just make it hard to find, but to my eyes, darn right hidden. I expect the day to come that this will be removed, but their clear expectation is that if you use this, you will buy it. Fair enough.

What the difference between chessBase proper, and the light version, it must be natural to ask? Well, as far as features goes, not a lot. Then how can it be free? One thing--they make it so that you cannot create files in chessBase, cannot modify them. There are a few little tricks around this, but this is very far from our purpose. If you like it, then buy it. This will get you started.

Try being in Medieval Europe without Latin in the world of learning. Try not knowing French in sixteenth century Europe. Try living in South America without Portugise. Try doing business far and wide in 2012 without English. Same here. ChessBase is the lingua franca of chess as it is. Forget ChessDB, WinBoard, or SCID. Crap. Anyone, and I do mean anyone who says it serves their purposes is either stupid or cheap, or stupid AND cheap.

Well, this is the beginning of a lot more to say. I am at step one in this sharing. All I want to do is help. It is time. I have thought about this for years. YEARS.

[
PS, I finished Part II of my Four-Hundred Points in Four-Thousand days series, but Google ate the revisions. That was about ten days ago, as I got to problem1,039 at CT-Art 3.0. But now I am set to finish the whole darn thing, so will rework the part I lost, not massive, but an emotional investment. Most of it was already written. I will publish in a few days, so stay posted! Tonight, I am at problem 1,174, out of the entire 1,209 so waiting won't help. I started Part III, and there will be a Part IV. Lots to say in parts two and three, not biographically, but more of the whats and wherefores.

That's one thing. Secondly, the next part on this ChessBase Light post (Part II), will take you past why you need it and what it means, as I intend here, to discuss what you do with it, and how This part is the real important part. Stay posted.
]

Friday, November 30, 2012

ChessBase 9 or 11: Para--Pro, Besides, Next to, Near, With, Any of These Words Work.

I have been feeling guilty about my last post. But I also stand by it. So now let me take the other side, so that I do not take unwary readers by surprise. I don't always but usually do like to provoke. But I love chessBase, consider it to be a necessarily if not MOST worthwhile investment for serious and aspiring chess players.

If I say less now, and have said less in the past, it is like two old friends taking a long drive in silence. Or a short drive might be a better analogy. They decide not to talk, knowing that it must be a gigantic conversation. Maybe not a difficult one, but once started cannot stop.

I have a LOT, a very lot to say about chessBase, and over many years evolved my own ways of organizing the material, my games, the work in progress. This day will come. When I will talk. I am very, very particular as to how I do it. To me, it is Zen chess work. It is heuristical art.

The day to day mechanics of chessBase, despite what some think, is relatively easy. Does it take some getting used to? Of course. Some very odd quirks? Of course. Germanic circumlocutions if you will....

The harder part is not how to use it or use it well, but how to organize the vast forestt--reference games, our own games, studies, openings, current GM games, problems, tactics, files. I love chessBase. I really want to make videos on it, but how much time does a man have?

I eat very, very well. I am actually interviewing with the top organic grocer in Tacoma Washington. I make all my own food. I run three to four hours on Saturdays, and it takes me two days to prepare, two to recover, sometimes three. I study chess, have my blog, my work on sustainability. All that. I am very directed in my tactical study, running, diet.

The Elvis of Asia. Serious. ... He is the Michael Jackson of Asia. Only near 1B hits, 3M comments. This cannot be just a fad. It is art. That he is a genuinely real, nice person who has worked to create his art, cannot hurt. Lovely interview here. If I were gay I would track him down and ask him out. Not that he is gay. Just a lovely man....

Love to you all. So let me close by saying that I worship upon the alter of chessBase. Daily.

PS: I have prepared my second article for ChessCafe (published on in early April). I plan to submit, but need to work on it more. I have all the source data, my own measures, like alchemy, comparing ICC to PlayChess to Chess.com, and a bit of chessCube. So much to do. The limitation is NOT mental, but as my guru Joy always said, 'Enlightenment is always embodied in physicality'. So here. It is the limitation of fingers, typing, revision, typing, mental energy, will, time, choices.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

ChessBase 12: Argumentum--Contra, Against, Doubt, Worry

I had no idea there was a ChessBase 12 coming out. If I had the time and energy, I would verily DEMAND that chessBase make me a beta user. But what the fu_k? When you are not surprised that you are surprised is hardly a surprise. New Obama. New Windows, New Macs? New ideology, new economics? WTF?

I do not use the term expert lightly. I am NOT a chess expert. But I am, quite assuredly a chessBase expert, having used it every day for seven years, probably ten years+ of use. I know all of it. Every single corner of it. I know how to do stuff that I do not know how to do.

And chessBase 11 was a major fu_k up. I used ChessBase Version Nine for six years, starting in 2005. Broken save functions. History for interupted saved games messed up, drag and drop within the 'fixed sort order' rubric WAS VERY messed up, crashing, replacing games messed up. But version nine was completely stable. Foolproof. Zero problems. But we hear of improvements, read ring the cash registered. Jesus!

Need I say that a former world junior chess champion, latter ranked eleventh in the world was it, asked me five or six years ago to send him ALL his GAMES with the former World Chess Champions in chessBase, read Karpov, Tal, Kasparov, for his book about his games with them? Is this a fool, a total fool who asked me for help??? He beat Kasparov several times, and Karpov as well. Dugh!

And asking him, a year latter, 'Did I miss any of them?' 'No, you got em all'. That simple. God strike me dead if I lie.

Well, lets see what chessBase gmB or whatever it was, gmH created. I have my doubts. Think Internet Explorer Eight then Nine, after Seven, which did lots of things neither of those did, total crap. Just crap. I am afraid. I hear of improvements. Give me a stiff drink. Not gazpacho but Gestapo. Oh my god.

I am utterly filled with hyperbole, but I earned it. What did they say of Nietzsche? He was obviously a very agitated but alert mind, at a pivotal time of change. 'Let them eat cake'.

Some consider me to be a very disturbing person. Well if only I tried not to.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Grab Bag: Recent Comments at CTS

I should tidy this up. But what the F. Who has time or energy? I am busy with finishing this cycle of CT-Art 3.0, and in view of going back to blitz to test how much of the last seven weeks of this study has helped result in seeing more in chess, have in the last day or two gone back to CTS, aka as Chess Tactics Server. It is the sh_t! [No time here. Quickly. Version four has problems. Be sure to get 3.0].

The skill had gone fast, but I am also very confident that this does not mean that I lost it. Slow calculation, standard as it were, is not the same as blitz, but at least from where I live, from where I stand, the one is connected to the other. Blitz feeds real chess, and real chess feeds blitz. Blitz is not food. It is fuel. You have to do a lot of it to get the raw experience, and the more you do it, the more you see. Comments below more than share my peripatetic thoughts.

Its Saturday, tomorrow promises to be the second nice day in three weeks. Some hate the weather here. I am among those who love it. The rain holds me in its gentle arms, bathing my sorrow, washing my heartache. But now that I am clearly defined as training for my first 30 mile run, but next year, and I need to put the miles in, and every two weeks need to do something big. And this is always best in the forest. That day is tomorrow. Those sort of runs can happen in horrid mud, but its good to be able to see where you are going, even if the mud is still there. OK, here goes:

Date From Message

2012, Nov 24 dktransform
Play blitz all the time? Sure. But then the skills
start to plateau. Most of all, fatigue sets in. 3 min
chess day after day can be stressful, at least if you
are doing it for real, that is to say, not 'for kicks',
but full on, urgent, each and every game, for real,
life or death, get a peak all time rating. Then you
know--relative to yourself--repeat, to yourself--you
are on form. Then you need to refresh and retrain.
Train all the time? Sure. But then you run into lack
of practical application, making comfort a value
greater than struggle. But if you are not doing tons
of training, it is not fruitful. Then you don't have
muscle building but 'routine maintenance'.

Then you
have to go and retest. The cycle repeats. Play lots
of blitz, go back and run your games in chessBase, not
for deep Fritz as it were, but to see where you have
habitual bad opening habits and constructs. You
determine to eradicate them, at least the way I do it,
go into chessBase and if you have narrowed down your
repertoire, you get to repeat. Getting to repeat, you
get to see what you do that does not work. Better
players punish you. You do deeper work, then do
tactics, then blitz. Do it all, then play standard
chess. See how good you are, and prepare for
punishment. But you get to experience yourself, in
relationship to others.

2012, Nov 24 dktransform
OK. Nothing to brag of here. Just report on recent
effort, as but one example of how one more CTS person
goes about his or her efforts. First bad form. Hard
to do 85% at 1600, 1500 level. So last day or two,
retooling. Now that I can do 1f/138s= 139t @ 99.3% for
1100 elo level. Now I step up to 1300. Once I can do
those around 97/98%, then I go back to 1500 level
problems. Once I can do those at 91% and push up into
the mid 1500's, then it is time to play blitz again.
It takes time, but you get back in shape. First and
foremost, by consistent success. 1100 is really not so
completely easy. Easy? Yes. But perfectly? Not so
easy. About 63% of those are 1300/1400 level. The
issue is not difficulty. The issue is determination to
correct thinking. Not most of the time. But each and
every time.

2012, Nov 23 dktransform
Hello CTS friends and associates, and Happy
Thanksgiving to all of you who are in an America or
American.... OK: 'How quickly it goes!' I've been busy
at CT-Art 3.0 and just about finished the entire cycle.
Great stuff. But it is also another world. I am
ramping up here again, really, really starting to
hunger for blitz, not for stimulation as such alone,
but to start feeding my brain lots of chess to see how
much I have absorbed in the last five or six weeks. I
certainly know not to loose all this hard work, by
total loss of confidence, by playing blitz, and having
a rating sink like a stone as I resync my brain to
faster board evaluation. As such, I am doing what I
have always done, and found to work, and that is work
hard, and steadily, and in size at CTS till I can do
lots of problems accurately.

But also as always,
starting back, you find that you cannot just will
yourself into form. It was hard to do 70 or 80% at > = 1600 level with 1500 level problems, and I can assure
you, since I cannot easily do 1100 level problems at
95%, it means my form is way off. CTS is a skill like
anything else, and you just don't show up, and voila!
It takes time. I will get it back, but until I can get
back to a 91% run rate, and steadily and consistently,
there will be no blitz for me. Its running laps, hill
work, the gym, sit ups. Then when the work outs are
good, and consistently, then the fight or the track or
cross country match. That time is not now! Warmly, dk

2012, Nov 19 dktransform
Good. Even better: 'Learning How to Learn: Bateson'sDolphins. One of the best stories about learning how to
learn comes from anthropologist Gregory Bateson In his
book, "Steps to the Ecology of Mind". In these
collected stories, Bateson describes how he saw
dolphins working it out for themselves in a
dolphinarium. On the first day of a new routine, the
dolphins were taught a new trick. If they performed it
correctly, they were rewarded with a fish. The next
day, when they performed the trick, no fish were given.
Fish were only given when a new trick was mastered.
This continued for two weeks. Then on the fourteenth
day, the dolphins performed four new tricks they hadn't
been shown before but had learnt by themselves. The
dolphins had learnt that learning, not tricks, is what
gets rewarded. It's precisely this skill that we all
need to learn for our own personal effectiveness at
work.'

2012, Nov 16 chessisajedrez
'If you were to visit a chess tournament and watch a
grandmaster in action, you would be able to observe a
surprising range of emotions. Sometimes, in apparently
simple positions, the grandmaster might lapse into
lengthy periods of concentration, where ten minutes or
more might be spent on a move. At other times the moves
will come very quickly, even in complicated positions.
You might even be shocked if the grandmaster suddenly
wins the game with a lengthy and brilliant mating
sacrifice – after thinking for just a few seconds.
Clearly the analytical process is not always directly
related to how complicated the position is on the
surface. The reason for this is pattern
recognition.

If the grandmaster can recall similar
positions encountered in the past, the same themes and
concepts might be applicable to the game in hand. This
makes it much easier and quicker to analyze a position.
It especially applies to the most basic attacking
formations around the enemy king. Once a known motif is
spotted, the moves of the potential combination are
analyzed to check that it does indeed work in the
particular position on the board. It is clear then
that chess analysis is a mixture of calculation of
individual moves and pattern recognition'. – Murray
Chandler,How to Beat Your Dad at Chess [dk: Quoted here. Great book. He is part of the Emms, Nunn, Burgess nexus at Gambit Publications, UK]

2012, Nov 15 dktransform
Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film
directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charlton
Heston and, in his final film, Edward G. Robinson. The
film overlays the police procedural and science fiction
genres as it depicts the investigation into the murder
of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future
suffering from pollution, overpopulation, depleted
resources, poverty, dying oceans, and a hot climate due
to the greenhouse effect. Much of the population
survives on processed food rations, including "soylent
green". The film, which is loosely based upon the 1966
science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry
Harrison, won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic
Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science
Fiction Film in 1973.

2012, Nov 15 dktransform
Friends and loved ones at CTS, lets not rot our bodies
and brains while we try to build our mental acuity
here. Worth the while. Love to all of you, David Korn
PS, now at problem 1,063 at CT-Art 3.0. This stuff is
the sh_t! I will finish it this time, in about 65 days
this time, then 47, then 23, then 11, then plan to make
the move to 1800 blitz, up one notch, then from nascent
1700 USCF to 1800+ (OK, not quite, but I refused like
97 draws in my recent games, lost when thinking i was
even, even when i thought i was winning, all of them!
try this:
https://secure3.convio.net/aahf/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1284

2012, Nov 13 dktransform
nice to see you. i am here twice a day, always enjoy
the notes. currently, after four attempts at the seven
circles, each time getting stuck at problems six
hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred, biting through
with deep, very deep commitment. drafted a xls
schedule. discipline was not and is not the issue.
these are hard problems, some mind bending. 'click,
click' and too fast, might as well not call it standard
tactics, but my old hobgobblen of 'guessing'. this
time i am biting hard. on problem 1,049, and on my way
to 1209. i do this at waking, before work, now, and
before bed. i was going to stop at level six, problem
1,039, my aim of weeks, and repeat that circle first in
40 days again recently, then 28, 14, and seven.

i do
not do it the same as michael de Mazla, but similar. i
decided two days ago not to go back, subverting my
irrevocable plan to finish at 31 dec 2012, but now the
whole thing, then repeat ALL of it. no blitz, no
chessBase, just john emms ultimate chess puzzle book in
bed. this is it. it is now time. leaving portland,
going back to washington state, to work on
sustainability, a 28th amendment to the american
constitution, into law. so first finish CT-Art 3.0,
prefatory to lots of USCF games back in WA state (not
much here, and not ready, and way overpriced here,
tournaments anyway), and nascent to that, will play
lots of blitz, and before that, lots of CTS. I will be
back, and believe me, my RD will not >100. i am awake.

2012, Nov 04 dktransform
i have been eating pretty much having a full mean every
hour for the last six hours, now constantly. when i did
a guided climb of Glacier Peak in 2000, i had a large
pizza two days before leaving for dinner, a large pizza
for lunch the next day, and a large pizza for dinner.
only 12,000 feet vertical in 1.5 days, carrying sixty
pounds. the body needs deep fuel reserves, but water
matters FAR more. i just got back from the trailhead,here in a far different place, driving 38 miles total,
just to drop 0.8 gallons of water at the 9.7 mile mark
off a access road along the way, to be ready to drink
up, tank up, and have water for the trip back. in the
forest, divine! then i am starving for two days after,
cannot stop eating :-).

2012, Nov 04 dktransform
yes. some of the old guard have a cc of a pgn of the
complete CTS problems, when there were 23k of them,
the last seven years. to the operators credit, they
added an additional 14k problems, but let it be
reminded that on one has ever or does complain about
the scope of prior. it is just that much better to
have more. ways to improve the site and user
experience? why yes, of course, but duly appreciated
all the same. a matter of what is present, not what is
absent.

please write me at
davidkorn.specialprojects@gmail.com, and I can send.
the illustrious ginger baker, who i believe still lives
in france (an american, and to my surprise, a man not a
woman... by the name only would have thought not). i am
preparing to run 22 miles to tomorrow, so if don't
send it then will the next day. massive eating is real
work :-). second, you can get pgn's of the two
reinfeld books as well as, what is it called, the Brako
or Bradko problems for testing engines here, which
should be plenty. good luck:

2012, Oct 29 dktransform
does anyone here, please, have any direct experience
with the many variations of Renko's various tactics
courses, CD's. to me, it is hard to tell. CTS, CT-Art
3.0, Reinfeld, Polgar's Chess Middlegames--4,158 Positions, TASC or Steppenmethod, at some point,
become no more or no less, you do the work, there are
no magic tricks. at the same time, if you aim too
high, i kind of ruins better work for latter. you do
not so much calculate or delve into the problems as
memorize them, as my Zen Master Dae Soen Sa Nim called
'Number One Bad!'.

you do CT Art 3.0 too slowly, you
just start to suffocate. do it too fast, its click,
click, this is not memorization, but time calculating,
with direct feedback. that said, its like the man
said, 'so many girls, so little time'. so here. begs
the question, what does Renko have that others do not?
i duly note, the guy on paper seems like the real deal,
a person of respectable intentions, effort, imprimatur.
blessings, david korn portland oregon

2012, Oct 29 dktransform
hello friends. i continue to work hard, very, very
hard at CT-Art 3.0, this time, doing the real, full on,
full-bore seven circles. not as de la Mazla described
it, but in my own way, but more like what he did, than
not. i plan to write about it, and already did, in a
small way, and have drafted parts II, III, IV, V. just
to let you folks know, i continue to read comments,
always nice to see new blood. i wish that i could
respond to the many astute, worthwhile, smart comments.
briefly, thanks to you, Chessisajedrez, always nice to
see your most worthwhile, astute comments. always.

i
plan to be back here, but not right now. to me, CTS is
chicken and egg--if i train for standard, i don't need
it. if i am playing a lot of blitz, then it is the
gold standard for training. chessTempo, of course. a
great place. nothing bad to say about it, lots that is
good. and yes, its free, despite what some say. that
guy Richard is one smart motherF. that it is visually
attractive, to my eyes, counts for a lot. smart is the
word for him, his work, that place. i maintain, you
don't go to CTS to learn tactics, but to practice them,
duly on the clock. see you all latter, warmly, dk
2012

2012, Oct 20 dktransform
sorry. speaking of accurate, not my typing. i just got
off work, am dead brain tired. but you get the idea.
you can view things in different ways. obama and
romney alike, think that increasing GDP for the USA 4%
annually for the next six years is accomplishing
economic gain. economic gain, instead, would be taking
first two percent, then four, then six percent of all
GDP for the next three years, devoted to sustainable
energy, sustainable life, while DECREASING GDP 2% a
year for the next three years. for example, get every
highschool kid, to work three times a week, ninety
minutes at a time, going around with a glad bag and
work gloves, and clean up roads and rivers.

but no,
child labor laws and strict things about safety,
toxicity, barrier protection prevents it. we pay
unemployment, and the concrete exists, the men exists,
the skills exist, the needs exist, but no, there is no
money to retool america or rebuild roads, but rich
civil servants and police have rich pension,
congressional pages have smart phones. yea. so no,
74% at 200k is not progress, it is waking sleep.

2012, Oct 20 dktransform
there are others who have done more, and or better than
me. but let it be duly noted, going 70k at 91% is
equal to the effort of 200k at 74%. it takes a LOT
longer to do the problems, more tension, more going
back, more time. at 74% you fly through the work.
just try 1,000 each way, time it, and compare. see how
you feel. even the difference between 90% and 95% is
light years. one in twenty five wrong is not 62.5%
harder, than one in gen wrong. it is exponentially
harder.

if you are doing 98.5%, as i did for almost
two years along the way here, that means if you get one
wrong in fifty, you have to do the next hundred in a
row to get back to parity. if you are doing one in
twenty, and get one wrong in ten, you then have to do
the next one wrong in forty to get back to parity. this
takes great effort. same analogy. 74% at 200k can
alternately be said to be gigantic evidence of someone
in a hurry insuring the same mistakes keep getting
repeated, not a badge of honor. chess is learning,
chess is thinking, not gambling.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Indignant

Look at Boris Gelfand. He always has the slightly irritated look of a man who is forced to tolerate meeting with an IRS (US Internal Revenue Service agent--taxes!) half his age, who is officiating with out of bounds authority. He has to be polite but knows its all stupid.

Svidler always looks like a guy who just got out of a mathematics final exam, where he knew all the answers, and found it easy. The guy who always got tops grades without studying, and dated the best girls.

I love them both. Amazing men. Gelfand is a rock. Svidler is the true, urbane man of the world.

Given proper opportunity, I would kiss the girl left of them--Press officer Anastasiya Karlovich, or ask her at the very least to give me a show, taking her top off. That she also knows chess or has a sweet Russian accent in the complete certainty that a man can always be expected to behave as a man does not hurt. She knows who she is, and is strong enough not to have to demonstrate it, knowing she holds power. How erotic.

Live video feed here, but probably not active after the match (two more games continue during this postmortem).

A mix of feelings and perceptions, including deep caution, brilliant depth, over carefullness, certain to go down in flames for time trouble, pressured by rapid players--Gelfand just 21 moves, Leko 22 moves. This is headed for trouble. Hardly needs a mention.

But what does matter, is how each and every man demonstrates his character (Women's WCC here, faster control, so does not bear comparison at this time).

These players grind and grind and grind. They hardly get out of the chair. I totally respect that. Takes guts. Takes stamina. Takes strength. Takes will. Takes balls.

Rapid Chess Improvement or Cheating?

Someone once asked the Buddha:

'Oh Lord. Do you think the soul is eternal or temporal?' The response is very wise:

'Of what use are these questions?' Work on your own salvation'.

First, I have read through most, if not all of the referenced links or looked at the blogs mentioned in my first post, Four-Hundred points in 4,000 days. I read them the moment I go the hat tip weeks ago. I even then recently received an email from a truly beloved chess friend, a very strong one who said he USED to respect de la Mazla's work, as an example of great effort, but had serious questions, if not great reservations now. I can respect that also.

Here is my position. There is merit in these blogs. Many smart persons, with work of real worth. If I had the time or inclination, or is it more like the energy, right now, to link to them, I would. You can find them in recent comments to posts here. Thank you. But its Thanksgiving night, I just got back from work on a most special American holiday, and I am pooped, tired. And CT Art is tiled below my browser below me now, and this is just a break in hard work. The best kind, when your eyes are drooping. Like the burn running up a very steep hill, when you can barely breath yet get that last bit of work out in. Build it within you.

Double Click to Enlarge Image

I do not believe he cheated. I have also read through many, a great many comments on his book at Amazon--there must be sixty or more of them, some very astute in perception.

So many (and this is not in any way to disparage my esteemed fellow bloggers here, I respect every single one of you)--there wish to bash RCI. But Rapid Che... need not be a perfect plan, or sustain bold claims for greatness to have value. Like those books, Learn a Language in Ten Days, or the Diet Audio tapes or video classes, Loose Fifty Pounds in Fifty Days, or Flat Abs (abdomen) in six weeks--six pack abs.

What matters is doing the work. You want to gain 125 points? Do it. You want to take Four Hundred Weeks, not four hundred days (less than eight years), its OK. Do it.

I am willing to bet many in those reviews either did not do all the work, or hard enough, or fast enough to get the full compression. But even then, I feel no need to judge or compare.

Do the work. I do not believe de la Mazla was all about money. Did he sell a book? Yes. Just as others have. Don't feel it has value (I never bought it), then instead just read the wonderful two articles at Chess Cafe, Parts I and Parts II here, then skim the book standing in a bookstore without buying, get started, then read the Chess Cafe articles again. Don't agree? Ok. Form a plan. Take action. Do it.

Me? I have done my spreadsheets, and done my calculations of time and energy, mixed rate of speed with quality, and am doing the work. Too slow? It takes too long. Too fast? You miss the calculation time. Too tedious? It can ruin chess as a game. Too easy? Superficial.

Cheater? Who cares. Don't cheat yourself.

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Now, I have a more to say, a lot more to say on this. I drafted Part II of my own comments six weeks ago more or less simultaneous to Part I, and went to publish, but Google ate my revisions. Even then, do I blame them? No. I have been blogging here since 2005. I know many a trick, and take great care not to loose work. But guess what--sometimes I goof.

I have ways I take exception to his work, others could not agree more, but whatever it is, I do not doubt he did the work, and he is one smart fuc_ker. His Doctoral Thesis at MIT shows as much, his current professional life is not exactly stupid either. That is rate of improvment cannot be duplicated except by one in five thousand, an aspiring Life Master. Well, OK. You do the work, attain one-quarter as much in four times the elapsed time, and take what you can.

Me? I love to study more than play. Far, far more. And if this was not such a provocative way to study, nee, a very very provocative discussion, so many would not be so riled by it all. Get to work and just try it.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Numbers

I never set out to be big. In fact, I seem to have reverted now to a stance or profile that will repel as many readers as possible, save the most veterant if not idiosyncratic kind.

Yet I cannot not admit it. I am soon to approach my 100,000th site visit. How disturbing. I try.

Come and get me, here I come [1].

[1] Acerbic but true. You cannot blog the same crap for five or six years. No. Or if you are, then why? This is not the same blog as seven+ years ago, at inception. Nor two years ago. I continue to evolve, and continue to modify what I think is worth saying about what I see. Who speaks of the economics of Chinese chess or says that Afghanistan, like a Queen radiating her force upon a mighty chess board, touches upon no less than six countries [2]? Why the big fight? Read the junction of mighty forces.

[2] 'Afghanistan (Persian/Pashto: افغانستان, Afġānistān), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country forming part of South Asia, Central Asia. and to some extent Western Asia. With a population of about 30 million, it has an area of 647,500 km2 (250,001 sq mi), making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast. '

China is big, China is strong, and with so many persons to choose from, can afford to cherry pick many categories for talent, by science and athletics. Art, no. Architecture and literature, maybe not.

Like the Japanese, cf. GB Sansom's 'Japan: A Short Cultural History', whereby, despite the great technical refinement known less for invention and far more for great ability to reproduce, such as is witness in Tokyo whether it be in fashion, Italian or French cuisine, or Jazz, so here. They take what you have, incorporate it, integrate it, and willy-nilly when practicable transcend it [1].

Whatever it is, the Chinese are coming. And come they will. Did you check your national sovereign accounts?[1] Not quite China, but ne plus ultra, good enough. 'Le Quang Liem and the Soviet School of Chess'. Fu_king god da_n great article. Damn:'What a school is and what its presence or absence means is something that you can understand very well if you analyze with Asian chess players. In February and March I worked a little bit with Le Quang Liem, and I will say honestly that sometimes my eyes popped out of my head. He is also a very talented boy (maybe not a Carlsen, but definitely out of the ordinary), and he is trying very hard to grow.

'But at the moment all he does is calculate and calculate variations. He calculates very well, by the way. But a school is, in my opinion, what you would call a basis of positional principles, playing from general considerations and this sort of thing.

'It’s very hard to learn it even from good books. In order to know which pieces should go where and when to exchange what, that is when it is very important to work with a qualified trainer':

as quoted by 'Top-player/coach was former FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman', at the ever inimitable Crestbook, 'Chess in Translation', what is it, by Colin McGourty. A great man who makes a great, unending, albeit humble, but most valuable effort.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Brooklyn Castle

The success of the recently launched movie about the single most successful high school chess team in the United States ever, hardly needs comment.

Duly so, they have publicized the movie very well, even writing me a year ago, asking me to mention the movie at The West Orange Chess Club, whose blog I ran for a year, eventually voted in as Secretary. A great club. We won the 41st World Team Amateur in Parsippany New Jersey, in 2011. The blog post, Community: Documentary Brooklyn Castle, ex-Chess Movie, is linked here.

I even got to play one of Elizabeth Vicarys' students at the 42nd World Team this last spring. A no non-sence person if ever there was one, worthy of great respect. Her blog Lizzy Knows All has been known for some time, I think recently married and now certainly Elizabeth Spiegel [1]. She just went through Hurricane Sandy. Her blog shows that she has been at this long, long before her school was so well known.

And I have often thought, that with a name like Vicary [2] and such amazingly pretty blue eyes, how can you EVER go wrong?? Seriously. We wish her the best.

Well, talk show host Jon Stewart is not one to suffer fools very well, so when he goes easy on someone, it is worth taking note who it is, what they are doing, and what they stand for. Video link here:

[1] Being married to chess IM Greg Shahade, brother of also stunning, well known chess darling, Jennifer Shahade, whether by cause of effect, surely cannot hurt either.[2] Vicar, def: 'In the broadest sense, a vicar (play /ˈvɪkər/; Latin: vicarius) is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant. Linguistically, vicar is the root of the English prefix "vice", similarly meaning "deputy".

'The title appears in a number of Christian ecclesiastical contexts, but also as an administrative title, or title modifier, in the Roman Empire. In addition, in the Holy Roman Empire a local representative of the emperor, perhaps an archduke, might be styled "vicar"'

About Me

Born in New Jersey and educated in New York, after practicing architecture, I lived in a zen temple in Korea, did a long stint on Wall Street as a Senior Broker, studied with a guru who lived with Maharishi in India, did a gigantic stint at a big box retailer in building materials.
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Most recently was running a Cloud Computing start-up in NJ, but starting over here in Tacoma where people are very nice, and where--aside from out of mainstream urbanism--I love the weather.
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Me? I try to be pretty straightforward in my conduct. In 2012 worked for a crazy big company, and wonder why, but what is it called, a market.
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I am not easily forgotten. Vanity? Yes. But it is also true that the older I get, the less can I be ignored. I have things to say, and say them. Take it or leave it, I am who I am. I have paid my dues. I have done my time.